The New Spain Fleets: Delving into three centuries of socioeconomic colonial history through Artificial Intelligence

欧洲和美洲在15世纪末和16世纪初的相遇无疑改变了世界。西班牙将建立对美洲大部分地区的控制，开创了我们今天生活的现代全球体系。西班牙王室获得的财富和资源超出了想象，建立新西班牙和秘鲁的总督制将能够建立一个以前看不见的、无与伦比的社会、经济和政治网络。这是通过查理一世授权建立西班牙舰队才得以实现的，该舰队在1520年至1790年期间执行了西班牙和美洲之间的所有跨大西洋航行。西班牙舰队不仅运送了黄金、银和在这些领土上发现的所有传统财富，而且还实现了各种资源的交换，包括植物、动物、食物，最重要的是，土著和欧洲的人和知识。这将产生前所未有的后果，从由于引进新的和高抗性作物而导致的欧洲人口增长，到最终影响大西洋两岸医学，天文学，化学，地理，历史和文学等领域发展的新资源和知识的获得。西班牙舰队由皇家机构贸易之家（Casa de la Tradeatación）监督。它记录了数千次旅行的大量文献，提供了有关塑造这些第一个全球网络的人以及最终塑造现代拉丁美洲和世界历史的活动的宝贵信息。该项目将在历史考古学收集证据和分析信息的方式上产生重大变化，同时改变我们对新西班牙舰队（NSF）的认识，它是近代早期历史上最重要的海事机构和基础设施之一。这将通过以下方式实现：首先，以计算机可读格式提供一个前所未有的关于NSF的数千份文件的集合;其次，通过五个前沿历史案例研究，深入研究NSF的关键社会，经济和空间方面，转变我们对西班牙殖民地海上贸易的认识。利用基于人工智能技术的创新计算方法，国家科学基金会项目将：（1）创建一个无与伦比的数字收藏，汇集来自两个主要档案馆的数千份与国家科学基金会有关的历史文件;（2）对这些收藏进行半自动化转录，解锁数千份文件中的历史信息;（3）使用自动注释方法来识别、挖掘和分析这些来源中有意义的信息; 4）创建一个在线平台，方便任何学者从新西班牙舰队文件中探索，查询和提取信息; 5）通过五个案例研究，进行一系列的历史分析，这些分析将大大提高我们对新西班牙舰队推动的社会、经济和科学革命的认识。该项目将为研究人员和感兴趣的公众提供机会，使他们能够获得过去只有专家才能获得的信息和记录。此外，案例研究将探讨一系列远未被全面和完全理解的主题，从而以目前不可能的规模开辟各种潜在的新研究领域和研究。这些将包括土著人民早期迁移到欧洲，人们在舰队中的社交网络，贸易路线和运输货物的经济影响，非官方的西班牙奴隶贸易，美国植物和动物的商业化和研究，以及关于健康，疾病和医学的科学思想的交流。

The encounter between Europe and the Americas in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries undoubtedly changed the world. Spain would establish control over most of the Americas, inaugurating the modern global system we live in today. The richness and resources to which the Spanish crown got access were beyond imagination, and establishing the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru would enable the creation of a previously unseen and unparalleled social, economic, and political network. This was only made possible through Charles I's mandate to establish the Spanish Fleets that, between 1520 and 1790, carried out all transatlantic voyages between Spain and the Americas. The Spanish Fleets transported not only gold, silver, and all the traditional riches found in these territories, but also enabled the exchange of all sorts of resources, including plants, animals, foods and most importantly, people and knowledge, both Indigenous and European. This would have unprecedented consequences ranging from population growth in Europe thanks to the introduction of new and highly resistant crops, to the acquisition of new resources and knowledge that would eventually impact the development of areas such as medicine, astronomy, chemistry, geography, history, and literature, among many others, in both sides of the Atlantic. The Spanish Fleets were overseen by the royal institution House of Trade (Casa de la Contratación). It recorded thousands of trips in an extensive document collection that provides invaluable information about the people that shaped these first global networks and the activities that would eventually mould the history of modern Latin America and the world.This project will create a step-change in the way historical archaeology collects evidence and analyses information while transforming our knowledge about the New Spain Fleets (NSF), one of the most important maritime institutions and infrastructures of early modern history. This will be accomplished by, firstly, making readily available an unprecedented collection with thousands of documents about the NSF in computer-readable format; and secondly, by transforming our knowledge about the Spanish colonial maritime trade through five cutting-edge historical case studies delving into key social, economic, and spatial aspects of the NSF.Making use of innovative computational methods based on artificial intelligence techniques, the NSF project will 1) create an unparalleled digital collection bringing together thousands of historical documents related to the NSF from two major archives; 2) carry out the semi and automated transcription of this collection, unlocking historical information in thousands of documents; 3) use automated annotation methods to identify, mine, and analyse meaningful information from these sources; 4) create an online platform that will facilitate to any scholar the exploration, query, and extraction of information from the New Spain Fleets documents; and 5) carry out, in five case studies, a series of historical analyses that will substantially advance our knowledge of the social, economic, and scientific revolutions facilitated by the New Spain Fleets.In doing so, the project will open the opportunity for researchers and the interested public to access information and records that have been only in the remit of specialists in the past. Furthermore, the case studies will explore a series of topics that are far from being comprehensively and completely understood, thus opening a variety of potential new research areas and studies at a scale that is impossible at the moment. These will include the early migration of Indigenous peoples to Europe, the social networks of people in the fleets, the trade routes and the economic impact of the goods transported, the unofficial Spanish slave trade, the commercialisation and study of American plants and animals, and the exchange of scientific ideas about health, disease, and medicine.